Plague of the FanboysMystery of the Howler
by DavidHayter
Summary: Harry Potter and his friends were all enjoying their day when a mysterious new character appeared without warning. In addition, a letter gives rise to their darkest fears...


**Harry Potter in Literary Purgatory**

_It's quiet, too quiet, _Harry mused as he settled in to one of the Gryffindor common room chairs, mentally prepping himself to get to work on the tremendous amount of homework assigned by Professor Snape that morning: 7½ inches on human horn and its magical properties. So far, Harry only had 3¾. He looked around to see what was causing him to feel uneasy. The fire was crackling merrily, thanks to the surreptitious efforts of the house elves. There was the quiet scratching from Ron and Hermione's quills, working away on similar assignments. All was as it should be, but Harry still couldn't shake the feeling that somebody was watching him. Could it have been Snape's words that unnerved him so, when he had hung back after class to complain about the grade he'd received on his potion that morning.

_"Potter, look at me. I'm unbelievably pale, I have hair that is unacceptably long for my gender, and a voice that doesn't sound entirely human. All in all I'm one step away from Michael Jackson. This dungeon is so deep beneath the rest of the castle that I doubt your classmates could hear you scream, if that ever crossed your mind." Snape reached forward and grabbed Harry roughly by the shoulder, speaking through clenched teeth. "Be glad that I don't cross that last line, Potter. Now get on to your next class, before I do something I'd regret."_

Harry decided to get a conversation going to take his mind off of that confrontation with Professor Snape. "Say Ron," he asked, "What's that you're looking at?"

Ron looked up from a large dusty book that he'd borrowed from the library earlier that day. "Brushing up on magical creatures. I thought I'd study ahead of time, since it can only help my grade. Hagrid says we'll be studying nympho's next class."

"_Ron!_" Hermione hissed, "They're called _wood nymphs!_"

"You call 'em what you like and I'll call 'em what I like. I mean, what else could they be, running around without any clothes all the time, eh Harry?"

Hermione rolled her eyes, and Harry sensed that it was time to cut this topic off. "Ron, I'm not in the mood."

Ron shrugged. "Suit yourself then," and he resumed ogling the illustrations.

Harry tapped his quill nervously on the parchment several times before he realized he was getting ink all over his essay. "Removethefinginkio!" He uttered the words to the spell, and indeed, the fing ink was removed, although it is not known why the ink was actively participating in fing, and who or what it was fing with. The Author is currently wondering how else he can put the word "f" into this paragraph a few more times. He has realized that it is futile, as any initial shock value has worn off and has decided to move on with the story.

"This makes for poor storytelling indeed," Harry muttered to himself darkly, an adjective that Rowling felt necessary to include at least once per page in books four and on. "I'm heading up to the bedroom, guys, I'm wiped."

"Hur hur, you said 'wipe,'" Ron chuckled.

"Ron," Hermione chastised, "it's not funny to knock off humor from an American cartoon from the mid-nineties, especially since it's the year 2005, and bigger and better things have come about."

"Yeah, masterpieces like Son of the Beach, Project Runway, Temptation Island, Wife Swap, The Biggest Loser, Life on a Stick, That '80's Show, Drawn Together, The O.C., The Simple Life, Crank Yankers, and I Love the 90's."

"Okay, forget what I said. Nothing that wouldn't cause more people to compulsively vomit at the mere thought of them than that scene in "A Clockwork Orange" has aired since 1998. There, are you happy?"

"Absolutely."

"You know what this calls for," an unknown voice interrupted, "a new character introduced at random with no plausible backstory or cause for their needless injection into the plot.

Harry turned from his position on the stairs; Ron stopped "hur hur"ing and looked up; Hermione smiled knowingly, perfectly aware that there was nothing she could do to stop the sociopolitical tragedy that was about to befall their fandom and putting on a happy face to cover up her sense of impending doom.

The owner of the voice was a slim figure in steel-frame glasses with light auburn hair. He was wearing a white shirt with "Save the Whales" proudly emblazoned on the front in socially acceptable fuchsia, knee-length khaki shorts, and a relatively new pair of Birkenstock sandals that looked as though they had never been used.

There was a good reason for that…

The owner of the voice was confined to a wheelchair…

How he got up the stairs to the dormitory, we'll never know…

Harry was the first to speak, his tiredness apparently vanishing. "Who- who are you? I've never seen you before, and you can't be a new student, because the Sorting was months ago. How did you know the password to get through the portrait?"

"Please, one question at a time. After all, I'm only one poor crippled boy." He looked confusedly up at Harry for a few moments before continuing. "Honestly, I have no idea what you're talking about; I've always been here. I know you get this a lot, but I'm you biggest fan; this is Stan. Remember?"

"No, I'm afraid I don't." Harry grabbed books one through six from his satchel and flipped through pages furiously. "It certainly doesn't mention you."

"Oh, don't be silly. Do you think that Rowling had the time to name every single student in the school? There's a very large world that exists outside of her linear narrative."

"Bullshit," Ron muttered before the censors could intervene.

" i Ron /i ! You can't just go and swear randomly like that! Now we'll have to put a mature content sticker on this story, and it's all your fault." She looked as though she were about to cry, but managed to regain her composure.

"Oh go fuck a horse; I'm tired of being censored."

This time it was Stan who interrupted him. "Now, you can't take an entire political denomination and play them out to be vulgarians in a sarcastic reference."

"A political denomination? What the hell are you talking about?"

"Take a look." Stan extended a badge, and Ron took it, held it to the light.

"Horsefucker Party, a denomination of the Reform Party… Well, I'll be damned!"

"If the wrong person reads this, you may very well be; The Author, too."

Ron's eyes widened momentarily. "Who'd ever want to harm me for merely expressing my opinion, as is my constitutional right?"

Stan straightened in his wheelchair, and became misty-eyed behind his thick glasses. His chest swelled. "First off, the Constitution is for Americans; you are British. And to answer your question, the proud and just crusading state of California."

"You mean that place that churns out all those assholes who try to sue people for not hiring an African-American over a more qualified white person? Sounds like a double standard to me."

Suddenly, Harry spoke up. Hermione and Ron started in their chairs, his long silence having left them to believe that he had slipped away mysteriously, as he was prone to do. "They crusade against violent videogames, saying that the content is inappropriate for children under eighteen years old and that they promote violence in the real world because the heroes kill, despite the fact that these same children are forced by the education system to read such works as Oedipus Rex, Hamlet, and the Inferno, which promote incest, patricide, wanton brutal manslaughter, and eye-for-an-eye punishment of transgressors. Fuck them."

"Harry, not you too!" Hermione turned on her heel and set off to the dormitory to lie dejectedly on her bed and touch herself in consolation.

Ron nodded. "Hey, I never knew you felt that way about the issue. Check this out; I think that you'll be interested."

Harry took a look at the photograph Ron handed him. It was a picture of Jack Thomeson shaking hands with Satan. "I'm not surprised," he said darkly.

"Why the hell are you always doing that?"

Harry blinked. "Doing what?"

"Saying things darkly. It's like Rowling has some sort of quota to meet, that you have to say something darkly at least once per page."

"We've already covered that, so just drop it," Harry said darkly.

"See, you did it again!"

"Both of you stop," Stan interjected. "Don't touch anymore on that subject."

"Why not? There something bothering you?"

"I can't say. Suffice to say that there's some pressure on me."

"From California?"

"You said it, not me."

Ron looked as though he wanted to say more, but then a paper airplane flew in through the window. It hovered briefly above the floor, but then it crashed onto the floor with a crunch, as though it were inexplicably heavy. Harry was the first to approach it, and upon inspection, the cause of the weight was revealed.

The airplane was an obnoxious shade of red, not the stereotypical blood-red that most typically associate with such ominous notes, but a pigment resembling Carrot Top's hair that tends to annoy it's recipients to the point of suicide. It was a howler.

Rather than ignore it and wait for it to burst into flames, which would scorch a massive hole into the carpet, which was school property and therefore none of his concern, Harry picked it up and opened it.

The voice rang throughout the room. "You have selected Microsoft Sam as your Howler's default voice."

There was a pause for a moment, then,

"Dear Slim, I wrote you, but you still ain't callin'.

I left my cell, my pager, and my home phone at the bottom.

I sent two letters back in Autumn; you must not a got 'em.

There probably was a problem down at the post office or somethin'.

Sometimes I scribble addresses too sloppy when I jot 'em.

Well anyways, fuck it. What's been up man; how's your daughter?

My girlfriend's pregnant too; I'm about to be a father…

"HARRY POTTER… you know who this is. I don't think I need to say it. It's-a-ME, Voldemort."

Harry looked around nervously. "Don't bother checking for other students. I placed a spell on this letter; only you can hear me. I don't know if there's been some crap in front of this message. There weren't any blank ones lying around, so I had to tape over this one I intercepted from some dipshit. But fuck that shit, the point of this letter is to say that you are being watched. I'm back and stronger than ever. If you want to try and stop me, stop by the place where we first met… no wait, that would be your old house. Goddammit, the second place we met, then. That's all. The end. Okay, I said I'm done; PISS OFF!

"I read about your uncle Ronnie, too; I'm sorry.

I had a friend kill himself over some bitch who didn't want him.

I got a room full of your posters and your pictures, man.

I like the stuff you did with Ruckus, too; that shit was phat.

Anyways, I hope you get this, man.

Hit me back back just to chat,

Truly yours, your biggest fan, this is-"

Stan blinked. Harry dropped the letter as it began to shred itself. Ron froze, pale with fright for the first time in the story, then he laughed.

"That's the best plot point The Author could come up with? Wow, he's no better than , a complete and total fraud. I can't believe that I've let this charade to go on for seven whole pages."

"Watch out," Harry cautioned, "The Author is the last person you want to make angry."

"What's he going to do? I'd like to see him come down here and I'll tell him to shove it up his-" Ron paused, and turned to stare deeply into Harry's eyes. He wondered why he never noticed how cutely his glasses rested atop his nose, and gazed into those emerald pools of eternity and felt his very soul stirring. Ron felt a curious bulge in his cr-

"ALL RIGHT! I get the point; stop it!" Ron shouted.

"Glad we've established this pecking order once and for all," The Author replied.

Stan eventually got over the shock of watching his equivalent of God have an argument with Ron Weasley, and just in time for the shock of Voldemort having sent Harry a letter.

"Hang on a moment," he mused, "I shouldn't know about that, since Voldemort put a spell on it so only Harry could hear it. A clear contradiction."

"Well fuck him and fuck you too. Just keep your mouth shut or I'll put your damn wheelchair at the top of a staircase and you at the bottom."

"M-moving on," Stan said, "Do you honestly think that Voldemort is back?"

"What do you think?" Harry replied. "It's the first rule of this sequel factory. He comes back in every conceivable way, shape, and form, just so long as the money keeps rolling in."

"I know, but don't you think that him sending us a letter telling us that he's back is a little ridiculous?"

"No more ridiculous than his most faithful servant teaching us how to i resist /i the imperius curse and recognize the cruciatus, thereby helping us and considerably lessening his master's advantage."

"You're absolutely right."

"Of course I am. The Author had to spend ten minutes staring at the word processor screen to get that one."

"Sounds like he doesn't have much to do with his life."

"Hang on," Harry said, holding up a hand, "He's got a message for you. I couldn't quite get it, but involved his foot, your ass, and a distance of several feet."

Hermione, finished with touching herself and having washed her hands afterwards, reentered the room in time to say. "This is getting nowhere fast, let's just cut to us entering the Sorcerer's Stone room.

"I don't know, Hermione," Ron replied doubtfully (no shit?), "I don't think The Author is the type to take too readily to suggestions."

"Well, we'll just have to wait and

"So, you came," Voldemort grinned. "And I thought you didn't have it in you."

Harry crossed his arms and made a show of being cocky and nonchalant. "You'll find I've got lots of surprising things in me…" He then immediately slapped himself in the head for saying something so stupid.

"I'll bet, and the last one's going to be my curse as it penetrates your body and I watch the light fade from your eyes. What the fuck?" He choked out the last one as Stan entered the room. He steadied himself in his wheelchair and prepared to charge.

"Leave him to me, Harry! The Liberals in California will never let a disabled kid get killed!"

He spun the wheels as fast as he could, and the wheelchair shot forward like a bullet. "Ramming Speeeed!" Voldemort smiled and a pink bolt shot out of his wand. The wheelchair overturned, spilling Stan out onto the stone floor. "Save me, California!" he cried.

There was a burst of shattered glass, despite the fact that the room contained no windows, as Alf Gorman flew in heroically through one of the aforementioned windows in the room that do not exist. "What's this then? 'Twould appear that a villain be'eth intent upon assaulting one of my valued supporters."

Voldemort rolled his eyes. "I should have expected a foolish interruption of this nature." He turned to Alf Gorman. "Don't you have something better to be doing? Somewhere out in the world, there have to be more votes in need of yet another recount."

"Vile servant of the Unholy, prepare to meet thy demise at the hand of the man who invented the internet!" Alf Gorman charged forward, and leapt nimbly over the downed wheelchair containing the sadly deluded Stan, the jacket of his black suit billowing behind him. Voldemort dodged the initial attack, and delivered a crippling blow to the electoral washout's fat, hairy crotch.

"Aargh, my vagina!" he screamed, and crumpled in a heap. At that moment, Stan's entire worldview was shattered. His jaw fell slack and he ceased moving. Occasionally, he drew a shallow breath, but other than that there were no signs of life.

Voldemort placed one foot above his defeated foe, and threw back his head for the obligatory malicious cackle. Something in that laugh inspired a force trapped deep within Stan. A chaotic mixture of blue and red, in constant combat with one another for dominance, emerged from his body and began to fill the entire room. Conveniently, Voldemort was vulnerable to this force, and lost his power due to a plot hole created by the literary hack that inserted himself into the story in typical fanfiction fashion. He fell to the floor in a heap, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione circled around him.

Harry noticed oddly suspicious about Voldemort. He reached down and touched the leathery face, which turned out to actually be made of polyester.

"Jinkies, a man in a mask," Hermione said to no one in particular.

"Let's find out who he is," intoned Ron excitedly.

Harry got a good grip on the material and gave a solid tug. There was a moment of resistance, and then it came free.

"_Janitor Murphy?_"

"Aye, 'tis me. There was a rumor that gold had been found beneath these here grounds, but I couldn't just go about digging wherever I pleased. I figured that the very name of Voldemort would scare the students away."

"But how did he have such quick reflexes?" Alf Gorman asked. "This mask doesn't look like it has very good eyeholes, and yet he was able to dodge my punch."

"Oh, that," Murphy croaked. "Some bullshit invention that doesn't make any sense under close inspection. It's powered by shaving cream."

"And so he thought he could use the name of Voldemort to scare off the students so he could take the gold for himself! I'm a genius!" Gorman exclaimed.

Hermione slapped herself in the forehead and stared at her feet. Murphy, however, had a very different reaction. "And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids and that useless politician!"

Then the police arrived somehow and everybody lived happily ever, for the most part.

Harry went on to become a pop culture icon and endured a lengthy period of success up until a group of radical fundamentalists burned thousands of copies of his books for promoting witchcraft.

Despite all of his studying of wood nymphs, Ron failed to pass the exam. He decided to shape up his life and promptly sent a letter of apology to the Horsefucker Party. They responed with an invitation to one of their interspecial orgies, to which he replied that he hoped they would all catch a bizarre disease and die slowly. He was last sighted crossing the border into the Alaskan wilderness.

Hermione was recruited to star in a series of solo softcore pornography internet galleries after they heard about her actions in the girls' dormitory. The money allowed her to achieve her lifelong dream of becoming a famous scholar, although her students seemed to be primarily composed of unattached teenage males.

Stan was forced to accept the fact that Gorman was just as much a bumbling idiot as Jordan Rush. He was released from the Sheffield Psychiatric Ward three months later. He then wrote "Red plus Blue equals Lunacy," a book examining the various follies of a clear political alliance. He then founded the Non-Alliance party, a party based on refusing to dedicate themselves to one political ideology. To date, there are 0 members, since his followers refuse to commit to the Non-Alliance Party, since it is a political ideology in itself.

Alf Gorman went on to write an award-winning sitcom about a former politician whose delightful bumbling attempts to succeed in other vocational avenues have succeeded in pleasing children the world over for six consecutive seasons. Accusations of this being a thinly-veiled autobiography have not been dignified with a response.

Murphy served three months of his two year sentence in Azkaban before he caught wind of a rumor that an ancient pirate treasure was buried beneath the dining hall. He proceeded to frighten off the guards and staff and started to dig. This is the last anyone has ever seen of him.


End file.
